Is Permanent Mold Casting Right for you

AN OVERVIEW OF PERMANENT MOLD

Permanent mold casting is an aluminum casting process that employs reusable molds made out of steel or iron. We often recommend permanent mold casting as an alternative to sand casting and high pressure die casting. Permanent mold employs a reusable steel mold like high pressure die casting as opposed to a sand mold’s one-time use and can incorporate sand cores to create internal cavities and undercuts.

This table is a guideline you can follow to determine which process is best suited for you and your needs. It outlines key details including turnaround time, per-piece cost, and more.

Fabrication

Sand Casting

Permanent Mold Casting

High Pressure Die Casting

Surface Finish

Poor

Good

Better

Best

Dimensional Tolerance/Stability

Poor (+/- 0.060″)

Good (+/- 0.030″)

Better (+/- 0.015″)

Best (+/- 0.005″)

Undercuts and Internal Passages via Sandcoring

No

Yes

Yes

No

Minimum Wall Thickness

N/A

Good

Better (min. 3/16″ typical)

Best

Annual Production Volumes

1-1,000

100-5,000

500-100,000

20,000-1,000,000+

Tooling Cost

Low

Low

Medium

High

Per-Piece Cost

High

High

Medium

Low

Tooling Turnaround Time

Good

Best

Good

Poor

3 KEY BENEFITS OF PERMANENT MOLD CASTING

1) DIMENSIONAL ACCURACY

Next to high pressure die casting, permanent mold casting is the most reliable process that produces dimensionally and visually consistent parts.

2) PERMANENT MOLDS TOOLS

Permanent mold castings tools (molds) typically last 100,000 cycles before needing replacement. Additionally, in some cases you can avoid replacement by refurbishing molds and by removing or adding features (to the mold) when necessary.

3) PER-PIECE COST

If you’re using the fabrication or sand casting processes, the shift to permanent mold casting can result in reducing your per-piece cost. Depending on features of the part we’re able to introduce multiple cavities, creating the potential for a higher number of total finished parts per life of the tool.

Custom Castings is vertically integrated with in-house processes including sand cores, machining, heat treating, coating, and assembly. Custom Castings has decades of experience casting for customers in many industries including aerospace, medical, transportation, and construction, providing extensive knowledge and expertise.